Tag Archives: Lynchburg

Our friend, Ashley, recently graduated from Lynchburg College and spent her entire last semester sending us photos of all the cupcakes she encountered while there. Since her classes kept her busy, she wasn’t able to write up a review for us, but now that she has finished with school she took some time to share her experiences with us. In her first review she shared the cupcakes she tried from one specific location on campus, Brewed Awakening. In this second review, she is sharing two other cupcakes she encountered prior to graduating.

Other than cupcakes from Brewed Awakenings, I snatched up cupcakes whenever I had the chance. The first one I tried was over Christmas break when I took the train home to Rhode Island. I was excited to find out that I would have to change trains in New York City and had an hour and a half layover in Penn Station. Normally I wouldn’t be happy about a layover but I love New York so I was excited to be able to spend a short amount of time there. While there, I wanted to get as much of the New York experience as possible so I was sure to have hot dogs for dinner, spend some time outside, and get a cupcake in the train station. Sadly I didn’t take pictures of the cupcakes behind the glass but I was quick to snatch up my safety option: peanut butter and chocolate. I was really excited about this cupcake because it was at least twice the size of a normal cupcake, but it was so big that I decided to wait until I arrived at my destination, where I knew I would be staying in a household with five other people eager to help eat it.

Considering the cupcake was shoved into a backpack for hours and then sat in the fridge for another half a day it was still very good! The cake was moist and the peanut butter and chocolate combination was delicious as always. The only complaint I have is the chocolate and peanut butter chips on the frosting. Although they were tasty they were kind of hard and took away from the taste of the frosting. I would have preferred just the Reese’s cup on the top, but that is just my personal taste and texture preference. Based on this cupcake though, I definitely want to try other cupcakes at Penn Station!

The next non-Brewed Awakenings cupcake that I had was at an end of the year reception at Lynchburg College. It was a simple chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and topped with mini M&Ms.

I was excited when I saw the cupcakes as dessert but at the same time I was not expecting a whole lot because the cafeteria on campus catered the food. Although our cafeteria generally has very delicious cupcakes, I still did not expect much and also was not even sure that they made these themselves. They had clearly travelled a good distance to get to our reception because they weren’t as pretty as some of the other cupcakes I have seen and it was very hard to handle due to all the frosting. After the first bite into the cupcake, though, I was pleasantly surprised. The cupcake was really good! I was afraid that the frosting would be too much at first, however it was a whipped cream base and much lighter than I expected. The overall cupcake was so good that I actually had another one before I left the reception. They were a pretty big hit and regardless of where they came from they were delicious. I would eat another right now if I could.

My senior year of college was hectic and packed with internship work, thesis writing and applying for a job in South Korea, but my new found interest, cupcakes (thanks to Jenn and Stacy!), made the semester much more enjoyable. Now that I know there are so many different cupcakes out there I definitely can’t wait to try others and look forward to hearing about more from the Crusaders!

We have another new guest reviewer! Our good friend Ashley recently graduated from Lynchburg College and spent her entire last semester sending us photos of all the cupcakes she encountered while there. Since her classes kept her busy, she wasn’t able to write up a review for us while she was there, but now that summer is in full swing she took some time to share her experiences with us! In this first review she chronicles the cupcakes she tried from one specific location on campus. Thanks Ashley!

I must admit that when Jenn, Stacy, and Elisa started talking about cupcakes all the time I never thought that it would escalate to the creation of this awesome blog that I enjoy following so much. Cupcakes really are the perfect sweet for me because they are generally pretty small so they are the perfect size for someone who wants to limit his or her sweets intake (like me). While I am nowhere near the cupcake “expert” that the Crusaders are, I have since started eating cupcakes more frequently and find myself capturing the moment in a photo each time to share with the Crusaders and give them my own personal thumbs up or down.

I recently graduated from Lynchburg College, a small liberal arts college in Lynchburg, Virginia and during my last semester there I often visited Brewed Awakenings, the coffee shop located in the building where I worked. One day, while I waited in line I noticed some amazingly delicious looking cupcakes. My initial thought was, “Brewed has cupcakes now!?” – this is when I knew the cupcake phenomenon had reached Lynchburg and I couldn’t resist buying one to see if they were as good as they looked.

One of my favorite flavor combinations is peanut butter and chocolate, something I share with Crusader Jenn’s husband, so without hesitation I chose their Peanut Butter and Chocolate cupcake.

I took just enough time to take a picture of it before I rushed to work with my cupcake so that I could dig in. Considering this was the first cupcake I got from Brewed Awakenings I was not quite sure what to expect. After the first bite, however, I was completely sold. This cake was so moist and complemented by the peanut butter frosting and topped off perfectly with a piece of a Reese’s Cup, my favorite candy. The flavors blended well and completely satisfied my peanut butter and chocolate addiction.

I am very much a creature of habit, so on each visit to Brewed Awakenings I was tempted to get the peanut butter and chocolate cupcake again, but as the semester progressed I deviated and ended up trying several other cupcakes:

Key Lime:

This cupcake was just as, if not more, moist than the peanut butter and chocolate cupcake. I was originally not sure what to think about key lime because I have not had much of it in the past, but the woman working behind the counter insisted it was delicious so I took her word for it. She was certainly correct! The cake was moist and had the perfect amount of lime mixed in with it and the frosting was delicious with specks of lime sprinkled on top of it. Yet again I was completely sold! I would definitely recommend that, if you have yet to do so, you try a key lime cupcake next time you see one!

S’mores:

I love s’mores so words cannot express how completely excited I was about this cupcake.

Just looking at this cupcake my mouth started watering. The frosting with the graham cracker sprinkled on top of it with the mini marshmallows looked so delicious. Maybe it was the mental build up, maybe it was the fact that the past cupcakes were so good, or maybe it was a mixture of the two but I was sadly disappointed by this cupcake. The frosting and everything on it tasted fine and made the cupcake edible but the cake portion of the cupcake was very dry and resembled corn bread texture (which was surprising based on how moist the past cupcakes were). This was very disappointing especially because I am not a big fan of the texture of corn bread. Perhaps if the cake portion of the cupcake was a little better it could be a totally different cupcake, but I definitely need to try a good s’more cupcake sometime to alter my current opinion on them.

Peppermint Patty:

Following my disappointment from the s’more cupcake I was a little nervous but I dug in anyway. I was relieved when the cake was more moist than the s’more cupcake, although not as moist as the peanut butter and key lime cupcakes. This cupcake was exactly like a peppermint patty with the chocolate covering and the peppermint filling frosting. The flavors all blended really well together and made for a very nice redemption cupcake. The only minor complaint that I have about it is that it was extremely sweet; however, in my opinion, peppermint patties are also extremely sweet so I suppose it was very fitting.

Classic Chocolate and Classic Vanilla:

These two are some of the less memorable cupcakes. They weren’t horrible but they also didn’t stand out to me as fantastic either.

I wish I were able to tell you who brought these cupcakes to Brewed Awakenings; however, every time I asked the workers behind the counter they did not seem to have an answer for me. The closest thing I got to an answer was that they were delivered by a personal baker who only operates from her house and does not have an actual bakery. If I find out any additional information I will be sure to update everyone!